Dishwasher XBLA Review

Written by Linkwick Tuesday, 14 April 2009 11:57

Having been developed from an XNA Community game, you'd be forgiven for feeling that this title could go one of two ways - be a carbon copy of the original community game dumped onto unsuspecting Live users with little else different but a hefty pricetag, or a nicely touched-up and expanded game. Fortunately for gamers, The Dishwasher leans heavily toward the latter without a hint of the former.

Weird plot aside, this is a side-scrolling fighter of old. There's levels chock full of enemies to slice and dice, and using the "light" and "heavy" attacks and the grab skill, you can pull off some moves that would even make Mortal Kombat characters wince (slow-motion finishers even give you a blow-by-blow appreciation of them!!). Gore is not held back in the slightest, and after a while you'll be too busy trying to think two or three combo moves ahead to really notice.

Combos are easy to string together, but still take time to master. Despite the absurdity of it all (and what about the plot really makes sense anyway?), there's also a series of "magic" attacks and teleporting/dodging available. Those defensive dodges will become essential - not only does the difficulty of the game ramp up significantly (even on easier difficulty levels), but some of the generic enemy types you encounter just spam annoying area attacks that require deft dodging just to survive.

The graphics come simply in lovely shades of black, white and scarlet red (guess where that usually comes from!!), with the occasional bit of plantlife or water thrown in for good measure. But to The Dishwasher's credit, it manages to turn a basic colour scheme into a sense of being in the style of a classic horror movie. The scenes move crisply and rarely is there any slowdown or glitching. Rounding it off are the crisp sound effects, but apart from sword clashes there's not really much to this anyway.

An interesting concept brought in is The Dishwasher's compatibility with the Guitar Hero/Rock Band guitar peripheral as a co-op feature. As an ex-dishwashing zombie, the hero naturally loves wailing out on guitar (there's even the occasional controller-based minigame of playing one). So upon collecting amulets in the single player story mode, co-op variations like this can be unlocked for use. The guitar version involves the second player using a guitar controller to convert his/her wailing and gesturing to energy attacks in the game. As strange (and as awesome!!) as this sounds, it could've been implemented a lot better. For a start, there's usually enough action going on-screen without adding in further confusion and occasionally obscuring the action itself. Secondly, it's not actually all that interesting in the end, and the novelty wears off pretty fast. Luckily there's a more "conventional" co-op available as well.

There's a fair amount of modes to wade through. Besides the "story" mode (which is a pretty generous length), there's arcade levels to wade through, and specific challenges as well - so there's plenty of "bang" (or "slash", as the case may be) for your buck. But ultimately, this is a single player game more than anything, and good for both an extensive session or just a level here and there.

At the end of the day, The Dishwasher is a fun (if occasionally frustrating) game. For those looking for an old-style button-mashing beat ‘em up, this is something up your alley. It may not have the glitz and glamour of a high-end development studio, but the gritty look and gameplay deliver where it counts.

Pros:

• Intriguing graphics and colour palate suit the game to a tee.
• Control layout is great and responsive.
• Reminiscent of beat-em-up's of an age long ago.

Cons:

• Higher difficulties ramp up your frustration to extreme levels at times.
• Action can feel monotonous after a while.
• "Guitar" co-op, whilst an interesting concept, is gimmicky and provides no long-term interest.

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